Low-profile dual-beam steering antenna based on active metasurface

Aiming at the problems of high profile, high cost and complex feed network of traditional beam steering antenna, a design scheme of low-profile dual beam steering antenna based on active metasurface is proposed. The antenna consists of “E” dual beam feeding antenna and “7×6” transmission metasurface. A 1-bit phase resolution is achieved by controlling two PIN diodes on each element based on the current reversal mechanism. Combining the phase compensation theorem and the far-field radiation formula, the metasurface unit is arrayed and encoded to achieve the performance of beam control. The profile of the proposed antenna is only 0.162λ₀, which is significantly lower than other beam-steering metasurface antennas. The bias network of the metasurface is designed. The dual-beam steering of the antenna is realized. To verify the strategies, prototype of the antenna is fabricated and tested. And the measured results show that the dual-beam can be steered from (ϴ, Φ) = (30°, 45°), (−30°, −41°) to (ϴ, Φ) = (30°, −45°), (−30°, 41°) at the operating frequency of 5.47 GHz, and the gain is higher than 8.9 dBi. The measured results are in good agreement with the simulation results. The proposed beam control antenna architecture provides a candidate scheme for realizing low-profile and controllable multi-beam antenna.